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“Stop laughing,” she scolded, panicking as he panted through the pain.

“Well, stop being funny,” he wheezed.

“Okay. I’m serious,” she assured him, pulling a straight face. “I’m serious now.”

He rolled his eyes and grinned, but at least he didn’t laugh again. His gaze taking on an affectionate gleam, he shook his head. “Maybe we should just call a priest to my room. I want to marry you right now. Before you kill me with laughter.”

Paige glowed inside even as she folded her arms over her chest. “Trust me. Before I’m done playing Nurse Ratched and making you take all your medicine and drink lots of water, you’ll be begging to push the nuptials back a full decade.”

He didn’t look swayed. In fact, he winked at her. “Bring it.”

Epilogue

PAIGE HELD LOGAN’S HAND as they entered the cemetery. Squeezing his fingers for support, she bumped her shoulder against his until he glanced at her.

“Thanks for coming with me.”

He rolled his eyes and tightened his grip. “Where else would I be?”

She bit her lip, pretending to think about it. “Oh, maybe in bed, resting.”

It had only been a month since the Granton school shooting. A month since the football quarterback had attacked her and her sixteen-year-old genius friend had killed him in retaliation and then slipped off the deep end and gone onto the shooting spree in one of the busiest sections of campus.

A full month, and nothing had returned to normal. Booths were set up in front of nearly every major building on campus to provide counseling for whoever neede

d it. A dozen new members had joined the Tuesday night grief group. And emails from university administration flooded her inbox daily about added safety measures they had decided to take around the university.

She felt like a survivor from a war.

And Logan looked like a survivor from a war. Though his left arm hadn’t been harmed, he wore it in a sling to keep it still. Too much movement, pulling at muscles on his left side, tended to irritate his slowly healing wound.

He’d lost a lot of weight, weight he really couldn’t afford to lose. Paige teased that if they ever went back to visit the cancer center, the nurses would probably mistake him for a patient and refuse to let him leave.

Even though he’d been letting his hair grow, it still wasn’t long enough for her to skim her fingers through yet. It would be someday, though. And she’d be there to play as soon as it was.

“Resting?” he repeated on a grimace as they approached the tombstone they’d come to visit. “But I can only rest when I know you’re nearby.”

He wasn’t lying. She’d stayed with him every night since he’d been released from the hospital. And more often than not, he woke in the wee hours, sweating and panting from a nightmare. He could only fall back to sleep when she curled up beside him and rubbed his back.

But despite all that, Paige still felt getting past the newest tragedy in their lives was going to be easier for them than recovering from the first one, because now they had each other to lean on.

Pausing in front of Trace’s grave, Paige snuggled close to Logan and sighed. “Happy birthday, big brother.”

Next to her, Logan shuddered. “It’s still so weird to see his name written on a headstone.”

Feeling his regret, Paige tilted her face to rest her cheek on his good shoulder. “He’s probably up in heaven now, bragging about how he got the nicest, most expensive marker in the cemetery. He’d love his monument. Especially the epitaph.”

Under his name and dates, the inscription That’s All Folks had been engraved in the black marble.

When Trace was fifteen, he had learned that very phrase had been inscribed on the gravestone of Mel Blanc, a famous voice actor, and he’d laughed about it for weeks, saying he wanted something cool like that on his own marker. So Paige had fought to get it on his after he’d died.

She was still glad she’d won that argument. Trace would love it.

“I miss you so much,” she told the cold stone. “But I want you to know, I’m happy and doing well. And I’m finally moving on…with my own life.” She looked at Logan and grinned.

He pressed his cheek against her forehead and closed his eyes.

After she let go of his hand, she bent and gently laid the bundle of flowers she’d brought with her on the chilly, thawing ground. Spring was just around the corner. It felt like new hope was coming for every corner of her life.